From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze)
Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 04/27
Date: 1995/04/28
Message-ID:
X-Deja-AN: 101719319
sender: news@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (USENET News System)
organization: University of Waterloo
newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling
- The WWF has "In Your House" on 05/14/95. This is the first of the
cheaper and shorter WWF PPVs. Tentative line-up has:
- Diesel vs. Sid Vicious for the WWF Title
- Undertaker vs. Kama
- Bret Hart vs. Hakushi
- Razor Ramon & 1-2-3 Kid vs. Jeff Jarrett & Roadie
- WCW has Slamboree on 05/21/95. Tenative line-up includes:
- Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage (with Renegade)
vs. Vader & Ric Flair (with Arn Anderson)
- Sting vs. Big Bubba Rogers
- Kevin Sullivan vs. The Man With No Name (Butcher)
- Nasty Boys vs. Harlem Heat for the WCW Tag Titles
- Great Muta vs. Paul Orndorff
*- Wahoo McDaniel vs. Dory Funk Jr.
Muta will probably be defending the IWGP Title at this show,
assuming his alter ego, Keiji Muto, wins the belt on 05/03 in
Fukuoka.
It's epxected that Ric Flair will attack Angelo Poffo (Randy's
dad) after Angelo gets put in the WCW Hall of Fame. This will
add an issue to their 06/18 PPV match. Other Hall of Fame
inductees on this show are Wahoo McDaniel, Dusty Rhodes, and
Antonio Inoki.
- The Ultimate Fighting Championship PPV got a tremendous 1.1 buy rate,
beating out anything WCW has done with Hogan and rivalling most things
the WWF's New Generation has done (perhaps including WrestleMania
which had its 1.3 to 1.5 buy rate estimate dropped to the 1.1
neighbourhood). One has to wonder about the effect the continued
success of the UFCs will have on pro-wrestling.
We've already seen characters like Kama, the Supreme Fighting
Machine, in the WWF, and Sgt. Craig Pittman in WCW. Pittman
at least shows some skill in subtle submission maneuvers. Japanese
pro-wrestling evolved with the success of shoot style, incorporating
armbars and ankle submissions into the mix very quickly and very
believably. IMO, the difference is that New Japan and All Japan,
at the time when they needed to advance, had a very skilled group
of wrestlers. Both groups recruited athletes that really had to
want to be pro-wrestlers; they suffered and sacrificed to get into
prelims. In WCW and the WWF (and North America in general), athletic
ability is not a prerequisite to get signed. Yeah, there is an
occasional Shawn Michaels, but who are the stars for the most part?:
Hulk Hogan, Diesel, Hulk Hogan, Sid, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker. Yes
the WWF is heading in the right direction, but they still need to
reshuffle half of their top guys into the lower level.
- Antonio Inoki faces Ric Flair in North Korea this weekend in a show
that is expected to draw the largest crowd ever for pro-wrestling.
- WCW's US Title Tournament looks like this so far:
Sting --\ /-- Randy Savage
|--Sting Savage--|
Arn Anderson --/ \ / \-- Butcher
|--\ /--|
Johnny B. Badd --\ / \ / \ /-- Steve Austin
|--Paul \ / Steve--|
Paul Orndorff --/ \ / \-- Jim Duggan
|-- Final --|
Meng --\ / \ /-- Ric Flair
|--Meng / \ Flair--|
Marcus Bagwell --/ \ / \ / \-- Patriot
|--/ \--|
Brian Pillman --\ / \ /-- Alex Wright
|--Pillman Alex--|
Bunkhouse Buck --/ \-- Big Bubba Rogers
Matches will air on WCW Saturday Night and WCW Main Event in coming
weeks, with the final taking place live at the June Bash PPV. Only
three matches have aired so far; known results are included above.
The best guess is that Sting, Meng, Savage, and Flair will advance
to the semi-finals. Since Savage vs. Flair will headline a Hogan-less
PPV in June, we might expect that match to be no contest, and the
Sting vs. Meng match to become the final for the tourney, with Sting
of course going over for the title. The other possibility is that
Sting vs. Meng will be a no contest and the Savage vs. Flair main
event at the Bash will become a US Title match.
- Steve Austin will stay with WCW. Meltzer had long reported that
the Austin vs. Duggan US tourney match had been taped with Duggan
going over, but that's not what aired. Did they re-tape the match
after deciding on a use for Austin?
- WCW has the Great American Bash on 06/18/95. Tentative line-up
includes:
*- No Hulk Hogan
- Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair
- Steiners vs. Nasty Boys for the WCW Tag Titles
The Road Warriors are apparently off this show because Animal
doesn't want to screw up his insurance payments by working a
match.
- The WWF has King of the Ring on 06/25/95.
- The next UFC is slated for 07/14/95. It was originally scheduled
for 06/23/95.
- Interview: I left the reference in my office, so I'll have to fill
in the source next week (I thought it was the Torch, but I'm a bit
confused). Many people were asked to evaluate 1993 from a wrestling
stand point and to comment on what should be done in the future.
Bruce Hart's answers were the most interesting:
Bruce Hart: All things considered, it was a really lackluster, dismal
year, especially in WCW where they wasted a lot of talent. I think
they are getting so damn far out, they can't get back to the middle of
the road. Some of the crap with the boat exploding in the water and
some of the other nonsense is signs of desperation and hotshotting at
its worst. It seems like they lost a formula. I think there's a lot of
room for improvement in the WWF too. I thought they were on the right
track - you have to re-establish some wrestling, with Bret as a
champion. I thought they really shot themselves in the foot three
times with what they did at Wrestlemania where they effectively killed
and really stifled Bret, Hogan, and Yokozuna's potential with the
finish. When the smoke finally cleared, Hogan was not over, even
though he had the belt. Yokozuna wasn't over because of what happened
with Hogan. Bret wasn't over either because he didn't have the belt.
The whole thing tarnished the image of the business and cheapened thc
belt, and just kind of left everybody with a lousy taste in their
mouth. I think another aspect that's really brutal business is that
ridiculous concept of shooting TV tapings several months in advance at
WCW's endeavor. I had the misfortune of being down there in Orlando
and saw one of those things. You have to actually see them to believe
how bad they are. They were actually running around toasting each
other like Bischoff and company on what a great job they had done. It
was some radical rage concept like having some second-rate comedian
agitating the crowd and shooting finishes for six months in advance.
You have to be deaf, dumb, and blind, and maybe dead for several years
to have any belief that there's some element of legitimacy. To me,
that's a deviation. People should be able to in a good story or a good
movie be able to digest it or interpret it or read between the lines
and have some subtleties that allow you to make your own impressions
rather than have obnoxious commentators. They're like a bunch of
schysters, and the carnival barking and shoving crap down people's
throats. I find that one of the big reasons the business has
diminished so much is you're not even allowed to develop your own
perceptions. It's like it's already done for you. This hard sell,
shove it down their throat; "To hell with their interpretation, we're
going to shove Lex Luger down their throat." They come out with these
personas and then they just radically change without any thought.
There's been so damn many switches in the last couple of years that
the people's heads must be spinning. They just switched Owen fine and
dandy. Unfortunately it's on the heels of Luger, Crush, Doink, Shawn
Michaels, and on and on. It's switch, switch, switch every time they
run out of things to do. That's desparation, thoughtless, with no heat
on consequences or what's already preceded it. They're wondering why
the hell they're not getting the fans, who are fairly tolerant and are
there for the taking. But at some point they get so damn confused that
they just turn off. That's one reason why very little that they're
doing is getting any impact, because it's been flogged so much.
Switch, switch, switch. They could switch the Pope and not get much
reaction now. Same with the belts, I think in about twenty-five years
from 1960 to '84, there was about seven or eight switches of the world
belt, which is maybe too few. But in the last couple of years they've
had the world title switch about a dozen times. Everybody from Bret to
Yokozuna to Undertaker to Hogan to Flair have held it, and on and on.
People are basicaUy creatures of habit. You can't confuse them or piss
them off too much. There's a certain way to piss the people off that's
positive and there's a certain way that's negative. The negative way
results in indifference. Once you get indifference, you know you're in
trouble. When people finally don't even care, they're just so
frustrated or they just feel like they can't take anymore. I've booked
and been pretty in tune with what works and what doesn't in the
business for twenty years or so. These things seem to me very simple
or easy to see. I don't know whether it's desparation or they've got
too many chiefs and not enough Indians, which I believe is the case
too. The times that I've been down at WCW and WWF I've had a pretty
good first-hand observation of the operations. It's almost amazing how
many people are running around with clipboards and headphones, their
heads up their butts, calling shots and backstabbing. I saw in WCW the
thing in Orlando live and it was a complete abortion. I see stuff like
WWF with their extensively endeavoring to have people take this
schtick seriously. At the same time they have the eight Doinks or
whatever. They seem to be scrambling. It's always been my estimation
that it's a sign of things are in trouble when you have too many
switches, too many belts changing hands, too many real extreme things
all happening. Even if it takes a while or a little bit of down time,
you've got to revert back to the basics and get a lot of the people to
believe this isn't complete shit. You can't believe in it without
feeling like a complete, unadulterated moron idiot. I'd have to say
this was perhaps one of the worst years ever. It's not like there's
some tremendous things on the horizon. I can't name much talent coming
up that I would say is outstanding. I spoke to Vince and Bob Dhue
about this, "At some point you've got to start developing talent." I
think they're on the right track perhaps working with some of the
smaller promotions, but they're not using those areas to develop
talent. They're just using the retreaded talent like the Rock & Rolls.
They're not even using that in a judicious manner. I spoke to Vince a
few years ago about developing talent out here in Stampede, because we
at least had a reputation for developing talent like Bret and Owen,
the Bulldogs, Pillman, Benoit, Liger, Hase, and all them. By and large
unless they think it's their own idea, they don't respond to anything.
Vanity is such in most places. You have to be full of shit or some
kind of a daydreamer to kid anybody that the business is in good
shape. Except for Europe, which they're already flogging too much. You
can only go to the well so many times. They seem to have this fucked
up notion that the ulcer is going to get better on its on or that it's
cyclical, all that type of rationalization and horse shit, but at some
time somebody has to take the damn bull by the horns and make some
fairly clear cut decisions. It's not that complicated. They're the
ones that are complicating it. You have to let the wrestling fans
think perhaps their cheering or support is actually a factor in the
outcome of the matches. I always thought that was a standard or a
given. The fans are all pre-conditioned to expect nothing ever happens
on pay-per-views. There's so many things that have been perverted or
fucked up with this business. It's really in a bunch of knots right
now. At one point not that many years ago it was on the verge of
becoming perhaps accepted as a major league sport. It was damn near on
the level of hockey and basketball. It should have been growing and
expanding like all these other sports. The morale's complete shit in
WCW and the wrestlers are completely fed up and pissed off with the
whole situation, but they're taking the money like, "Whatever these
idiots want to us to do, that's what we'll do."
Bruce Hart: I think you have to get back to conventionality as far as
getting heat and having the belts mean something. I think you have to
let the heels get some heat and sustain it, and have a lot fewer
switches and maybe have some person perhaps like Bret or Michaels or
some guys who can actually work a bit, have the belt for a while and
get it over. I think every time they turn around now if a guy doesn't
increase ratings over night, they switch it. I think they have to
induce some stability into the boys and some of the characters. I
don't think they need ten or twelve matches on the house shows. I
would give about five or six matches a night and have the boys work
longer and develop better scripts and storylines in their matches.
This crap where the matches are four or five minutes with parading and
horse shit, you're kind of almost encouraging the wrestlers not to
learn how to work. I don't think the fans get into those kinds of
matches.
- Booking Prediction Tourney: The WrestleMania results have been posted.
The "In Your House" ballot will be posted in ten days or so.
- WWW: This post is presented weekly, presumably with some short delay,
on Mark Long's r.s.p-w home page on the Web. That page contains a lot
of interesting wrestling info, so give it a try at:
http://www.luc.edu/~mlong/wrestling.html
- Videos: I have posted something about the availability of videos.
If you missed it, I'll send it to you in e-mail upon request. It
appears that the istrain.health.ufl.edu ftp site has been wiped
clean up r.s.p-w stuff and nobody knows what's going on.
Herb...